2009 Country Reports on Terrorism - Czech Republic

United States Department of State, 2009 Country Reports on Terrorism - Czech Republic, 5 August 2010, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/4c63b64cc.html [accessed 3 March 2015]

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The Czech Ministry of Interior's office with primary responsibility for counterterrorism analysis, the National Contact Point for Terrorism (NCPT), concluded that there was no acute risk of a terrorist incident, but assessed that the overall security situation in the Czech Republic was unpredictable. The NCPT is the Ministry of Interior's lead office for collecting and analyzing law enforcement data related to terrorism. A relatively new organization, the NCPT continued to recruit and train needed personnel, and to establish reporting protocols within the Czech National Police to ensure effective and timely dissemination of information. The NCPT determined that the country's membership in NATO and the EU, and its military presence in Afghanistan, made it a potential target for an attack. Czech law enforcement officials also remained vigilant for signs that the country was being used as a logistical or staging base for potential terrorist attacks within Europe.

The NCPT perceived an emerging risk in a possible connection between increasingly violent right-wing extremism and terrorism. In October, a group of 10 individuals was arrested by the Czech National Police on suspicion of preparing to conduct a terrorist attack, possibly directed against an infrastructure facility such as a power plant. These individuals were members of the illegal right-wing extremist organization White Justice, which declared itself to be a militant neo-Nazi group. Evidence indicated that members of the group were conducting military training camps to teach small-unit military tactics. There were no other arrests related to terrorism in 2009.

The Czech government's overall efforts against terrorism are established in its "National Counterterrorism Action Plan for 2007-2009". This strategic document set goals in four areas: improving communication and coordination between intelligence and law enforcement agencies; protecting the public and critical infrastructure; preventing the isolation and radicalization of immigrant communities; and conducting foreign policy to counter international terrorism. In October, after receiving the Ministry of Interior's evaluation of the effectiveness of the 2007-2009 Plan, the Czech National Security Council tasked the Ministry of Interior to prepare a new plan for the period 2010-2011.

The Ministry of Finance's Financial Analysis Unit and the Customs Service cooperated with the NCPT to combat terrorist financing. The NCPT has a public website with an anonymous Internet hotline.

The Czech Republic actively participated in the counterterrorism and nonproliferation efforts of multilateral bodies such as NATO, the EU, and the UN. The country's bilateral cooperation with the United States was also close. The NCPT characterized the level and quality of cooperation it received from U.S. agencies and law enforcement offices as exceptionally good and very successful.

The Czech parliament approved an ongoing deployment of up to nearly 540 military personnel in Afghanistan. The Czech Ministry of Defense also slightly increased the size of its Provincial Reconstruction Team of civilian experts in Afghanistan's Logar Province.